bell that speaks the departure of a soul?  No.  Can I leave digging the tombs of my neighbours and acquaintances which have many a time made me shudder and think of my mortality, when I have dug up the mortal remains of some perhaps as I well knew?  No.  And can I so abruptly forsake the service of my beloved Church of which I have not failed to attend every Sunday for these seven and a half years?  No.  Can I leave waiting upon you a minister of that Being that sitteth between the Cherubim and flieth upon the wings of the wind?  No.  Can I leave the place where our most holy services nobly calls forth and says, “Those whom God have joined together” (and being as I am a married man) “let no man put asunder”?  No.  And can I leave that ordinance where you say then and there “I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,” and he becomes regenerate and is grafted into the body of Christ’s Church?  No.  And can I think of leaving off cleaning at Easter the House of God in which I take such delight, in looking down her aisles and beholding her sanctuaries and the table of the Lord?  No.  And can I forsake taking part in the service of Thanksgiving of women after childbirth when mine own wife has been delivered ten times?  No.  And can I leave off waiting on the congregation of the Lord which you well know, Sir, is my delight?  No.  And can I forsake the Table of the Lord at which I have feasted I suppose some thirty times?  No.  And, dear Sir, can I ever forsake you who have been so kind to me?  No.  And I well know you will not entreat me to leave, neither to return from following after you, for where you pray there will I pray, where you worship there will I worship.  Your Church shall be my Church, your people shall be my people and your God my God.  By the waters of Babylon am I to sit down and weep and leave thee, O my Church! and hang my harp upon the trees that grow therein?  No.  One thing have I desired of the Lord that I will require even that I may dwell in the House of the Lord and to visit His temple.  More to be desired of me, O my Church, than gold, yea than fine gold, sweeter to me than honey and the honeycomb.

Now, kind Sir, the very desire of my heart is still to wait upon you.  Please tell the Churchwardens all is reconciled, and if not, I will get me away into the wilderness, and hide me in the desert, in the cleft of the rock.  But I hope still to be your Gehazi and when I meet my Shunamite to say “All, all is well.”  And I will conclude my blunders with my oft-repeated prayer, “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.  As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.”

P.S.  Now, Sir, I shall go on with my fees the same as I found them, and will make no more trouble about them, but I will not, I cannot leave you, nor your delightful duties.

Your most obedient servant,

GEORGE G——­ G.

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